Against a deflationary environment of austerity-driven wage and pension cuts combined with rising unemployment; food, commodity, and fuel prices continue to surge in Greece. The government has taken an unusual step - allowing the sale of expired food at lower prices. As Voz Populi reports, this act means the government has 'virtually admitted their inability to control prices" as the worst aspects of stagflation crush the Hellenic Republic. The regulation (allowing from one-week to one-month extensions of foods for sale post their eat-before-this-day-or-you'll-get-Salmonella date) has existed for many years, according to a ministerial decree and this action merely states that these foods must be sold at a lower price. Meat and dairy is excluded but this move is described as "an immoral act" as few believe prices will actually be reduced - since that is at the discretion of the merchant. As the National Food Agency notes: "This is also a moral dilemma, to divide consumers into two groups: those who can afford basic food and those who, because of poverty, are forced to resort to dubious quality food." We presume this will also reduce the drag on pension and healthcare costs as death rates will rise?

Greece will allow the sale of expired food at a price lower than the original, in a move that the government has not been able to justify but consumer groups have interpreted as evidence of their inability to stop the escalating cost of commodities. A ministerial decree just reviving an old regulation that authorizes supermarkets and grocery stores to sell food once the expiration date, Efe reported. "This regulation has existed for many years. And it is something that is allowed in the rest Europe. All I did was point out that these products must be sold at low prices. do not understand what is causing so much noise, "said Yorgos Moraitakis Efe, advisor to the Ministry of Development, Competition and Merchant Marine.

The regulations exclude meat and dairy from the list of perishables that can be sold and sets a ceiling dates you can continue marketing. Thus, foods in which the expiration date is indicated by the day and the month, may continue on the shelf for another week. In the event that the "best before" only month and year point, the sale may be extended for one month, and in the event that the date indicated year alone, the sale date may be extended by one quarter.

Though Moraitakis Efe declined to specify the reasons for this decision and merely noted that the legislation already existed, consumer groups and even government agencies have criticized the measure. "Virtually admit their inability to control prices," Efe reported Tsiafutis Victor Consumers Association 'Quality of Life', one of the oldest in Greece.

Food Inflation

In the Greece of the crisis, the wage and pension cuts and rising unemployment, food prices and commodities has not stopped rising. Between August 2011 and August 2012, the price of sugar shot up 15%, the eggs, 6.8% for butter by 3.2% and that of coffee, 5.9%, according to data from the Statistics Authority. "It is an immoral act," criticized Tsiafutis. "Instead of taking initiatives to control prices, allow the sale of food past the expiration date."

Moreover, from the National Food Agency gets even concerned that the measure serves to something. "It is doubtful that these foods are to be sold at low prices, because the price control mechanisms have failed," said Yannis Mijas, president of this organization linked to the government. Indeed, the measure of how much states must be the initial price reduction, which is at the discretion of the merchant.

To Mijas, selling expired food is also a moral dilemma, to divide consumers into two groups: those who can afford basic food and those who, because of poverty, "are forced to resort to dubious quality food."

The local falafel joint here has already added the "Austeriwich" to the menu: Stale pita, hardened falafel, soggy tomatoes, soggy cucumber, withered lettuce, moldy hummus, and a splash of tzatziki just about to go bad.

“As people’s diets are becoming more sophisticated and as they eat more beef and less grains and so on, the demand for food and energy rise and that’s the primary long-term factor affecting the real price of commodity and food,” Bernanke 2011

Hey Ben how sophisticated is it eating out of a garbage can....YOU ASS

Au contraire Sousa...at least half of regular ZH posters will be the first group rounded up...in order to pacify everyone...because who's gonna' stand up for a bunch of tough-talkin' pimply-faced middle-aged registered sex offenders with nothing whatsover to offer the world except angry frustration and a tiny toxic penis? Hahaha

I shoot mine from the deck if they are in yard if I have the bow handy. Dress and clean in under a minute. Cut from the neck. Pull the pelt off in one pull, then remove the head and finally two fingers up inside the breast bone and scrape into a bucket. Remove sweet meats and discard guts. Dogs and kitty's like the kidney, liver and heart. Fry them up to kill any parasites before feeding them to pets, heart worms love rabbits.

Like pork, you do not want to see any blood and the juice must run clear. These are rodents. Tasty rodents.

Beautiful pics HH but you left out some of the gory details. Kind of reminds me of " collect underpants..... .????.......profits". People need to be educated on the entire process. I'll never forget my first slaughter...a bit rough for a girl raised in San Francisco to behold. Mr miffed insisted our girls experience the reality where meat comes front. There were tears when Hank the turkey was served on Thanksgiving (my fault, I turned him into a pet against mr miffed's warning not to play with one's food). Ask an average kid today where meat comes from I'm sure most would say from the supermarket in pretty cellophane packages. Maybe some aren't just ready for that kind of reality.

If things get really bad someone will set up a pet exchange. See you just can't eat your own pet. But you could list it on a community bulletin board and swap your pet with the pet of someone that lives in your area.

When your grocery store is empty or insanely over priced and HH has a brace of coney's for sale at half the cost of chicken. Believe me, you will wait in line for service and hope HH has rabbit's left.

It tastes like chicken and has the highest amount of protein per pound. More than those shitty power drinks Cretine addicts choke down during workouts. 29.5% by weight, closest beast out there than offers that much bang for the buck is Ostrich (don't ask there's an Ostrich farm locally, eggs and meat).

PLUS prep and clean of a rabbit takes maybe 20 seconds. You can't get fresher food anywhere, hang it a bit to drain. And it's delicious. Keep the urban-suburban mindset in check when talking about food. Your ancestors ate it and more than likely your decendants will eat it, if you survive without animal protein.

Are you mentally poor? You seem like a class A douche unless your purpose was sarcasm, in which case please ignore my rant. Are you fucking serious? Have you every REALLY been hungry? You keep eating that GMO shit at the grocery. Some of us are self sufficient and have little need. My take on eggs today was 120, 10 dozen. At $5.00 a dozen minus expenses I made about $40 for doing nothing but collecting them... Am I poor? Considering the third world country's I have visited and lived in I think I and HH are fucking wealthy.

Yeah, experienced real poverty (my wife is from the Philippines). I KNOW that I'm "wealthy" (though, not by US standards).

You're getting $5/doz? Is this USD? We do non-GMO feed, so input costs are up there.

My wife's happy that our latest ducks are now laying- salted duck eggs are moving pretty well. (we'd taken a hit from raptors, took out 2 of our 3 [then] females; our dog is now trained to chase these predators away).

Live in an area that's got a lot of horse folks, and I figure that before long horse will be on the menu... I refer to horses as "home wreckers," usually women wanting their ponies over being able to eat...

You can learn to operate a chain of franchise dumpsters, and eat well!

Well, how does it work, how do I prosper in the fast growing dumpster economy?

Good question. You see there are millions of dumpsters in America and every day the are loaded up with millions of dollars of valuables. These are dumpster dived for free. However with our unique program franchise training, you can lock up those dumpsters and start making cash money. The potential is unlimited .........

Time to insidiously undermine the bastards. Just had a big weekend of dumpster diving. Even found another freezer to hold all the perfectly good packaged food we got. Last year's model with a few dings; worked perfectly after replacing the plug that the dept. store cut off to prevent the serfs from getting something for free. They're lucky the People of Wal-Mart Scooter Brigade would never think to raid dumpsters or replace plugs, otherwise they might have to smash things first.

Dumpster diving is also a cheap way to get your preps in. Wait until AFTER TSHTF to tell the missus you got the food from a dumpster and spent the clownbux on ammo instead.

Some people even get specific items by ensuring they end up in the bin. It can be as simple as damaging packaging or leaving food in some unrefrigerated random location just before closing time. I haven't stooped to this myself.

Disclaimer: I don't know what dumpster diving is like in America these days. Might be a good way to get your head caved in and end up in jail.

Short-term at best... Reminds me of the folks talking up waste veggie oil; it was cheap until it wasn't. All relies on input-stream excesses, and, it should be pretty clear that such excesses are diminishing.

I've been to the Philippines (wife is from there*), and though I didn't see people consuming dog and cat I didn't really see many of them. Those that I did see weren't exactly pampered pets: kind of sick to see some large dogs stuffed into small cages (guard dogs?).

* My/our dog is safe for now since she's my wife's companion/guard dog as well as a livestock guardian dog :-)

true story. about 18 years ago i made a long line of bad choices and found myself homeless in sacramento ca. not too far from the greyhound bus station there was a walking mall that had numerous places to eat. every single dumpster had a lock on it. was a surprise to me then... i wonder what if is like now...?

You're right. My wife and I have been buying from the day old baked foods rack for years. Since all major grocery stores now have a bakery in them they have loads of baked goods they have to get rid of on a daily basis. Have you checked the prices on some of this freshly baked stuff? Pies for $10? Ten bucks for a fricking pie and then 2 days later it's $2.50.

As a sign of the times the products on the reduced rack are slim pickings by the end of the day. More and more people are buying from the reduced rack and if you don't get there when the old goods go up you'll be sucking hind titty.

My local fresh market corner store has fresh baked breads. Today I went in and the loaves of zucchini bread were $2. I asked why so cheap -- it's usually $5.99. Answer: It was baked on Saturday and today is Monday. Bought a loaf and it was even better! I'll be looking for bread on Monday's from now on.

Most non- meat/non-milk products sell by date is under-reported for CYA reasons by about 50%.

My grandma, polish immigrant circa 1930's used to ONLY buy "old food". Couldn't believe that the stuff was 50% off. Used to wait until after 9pm and go and buy the "old bread" from bakery. Of course my dad and his siblings used to refer to her soup as "poison soup"........;)

Ah, look at this. This is the stabeletee and prosperetee brought by Euro. First You lost Your mon pol, borrowed to the hilt while interest rates were too low because of ECB's one-size-fits all policies and then You crashed. And when You crashed the unelected foreign overlords came and took over. You lost Your sovereignty. Then the unelected foreigners started to cut Your wages, pensions, jobs... Only the banks got scott free. And now Your going to eat old food if You can even afford that. And to add insult to injury, You have the same criminals who corrupted Your state, PASOK and ND, implementing the decisions made by the unelected foreigners.

The picture of that moldy bread lead me to goggle do-it-youself penicillin. It can be done; the necessary chemicals and lab equipment are readily available, but it seems to require a temperature-controlled environment of 70 degrees and a precise scale for measuring grams. The guy whose instructions I read suggests stocking up on aquarium antibiotics for preppers. Same thing the doctor prescribes, no prescription necessary. When I googled aquarium antibiotics I was amazed at what is available. In a pinch, remember the old wifes of Europe were noted to be dressing wounds with moldy bread during WWI, and spagnum moss (they make hanging baskets out of the stuff), has known antibacterial properties, and has been used for centuries to dress wounds and prevent infections.

dry spagnum can be compressed into a pad of sorts. it is very absorbant and when used as T.P. works better than leaves or any other vegetable matter bum wipe. I have notice a bit of a rash developping by mid afternoon so good washing facilities are important.

i just bought 10 lindt dark chocolate bars for 10 bucks.........huge bargain...i asked the chic at the lindt store about the discount...she said the expiration date is next month.....but that they have a shelf life of at least 6 months post expiration......good enough for me...............most foods dont expire past the expiration.....dried beans, lentils, rice, canned foods.....many other packaged foods i have no intention of throwing away, post expiration date, in my prepper closet.....

Hmmm. Your argument is a bit hollow as the people are suffering even more under price controls. If they wouldn't control the prices then there would be capital and investment into food agriculture and food distribution because people will be looking to profit. This will drive costs down,and bring more supply on line.

How can prices rise 15% when unemployment is going up and pensions are being cut? These things should force prices down. If I own a supermarket in Greece I have less customers. I would try to sell what I had and keep my inventory lower to meet the lower demand.

Yet I know it's true. Gas prices are higher in Greece than anywhere in the rest of the Eurozone. How does this make sense at all? In the United States we have cities that are doing very badly, like Detroit. Gas is cheaper in Detroit than New York. This makes sense.

There is an overconsumption issue and despite 'americans'' wet dreams, you do not solve this kind of issues by pushing under the train non consumers. You have to push actual consumers.

Greek people are squeezed out of their consumption so that other areas in the 'american' world can maintain or increase their own 'american' consumption pattern.

Dont worry though, this kind of stuff will be met by the very same:people follow resources and as greek people can not consume products (sometimes made in their own country), they will move to places where the actual consumption is done.

With the US market the ultimate market in this 'american' world and US world order, all those talks about borders, drones and stuff will make sense because as the US market will be the one draining from all the rest in the last part, many, many people are going to knock at the doors...

Read on another thread, even Japanese wish they consume US american cars or re import their own car production from the US so they can consume it...

babylon simple supply and demand.If Greece has no credit to buy imports, food, clothing, then there will be a shortage.The remaining Euros and those holding them will outbid those without Euros. Inflation.

Supply and demand.

We had inflation from 1933 to 1936 of 41% during the Great Depression.

You probably picked that crap up from a college textbook. Economic college textbooks are good for wiping your ass with and little else.

Most of the "pull by" dates are total bull and put on by the manufacturer to move more product. As a grocery store owner, I would always check the product when I pulled it for date expiration. 99% of the time the product was as good as the day it went on the shelf. Here in the USA we throw out perfectly good food because of an arbitrary date meant only to put more money in the manufacturers pocket.

It has nothing to do with rotating stock. Some things just don't sell by the pull date. I forgot to mention that it was a natural foods grocery store so everything had a pull date because nothing had preservatives in it.